Abdoulkader Issoufou

Issoufou is one of the young Sahel leaders on the matter of demography and development through the program developed by the Oasis Initiative and the University of California at Berkeley.– Nominator

Describe your contributions to and achievements in family planning.

I developed family planning activities in the Maradi Region (Niger Republic). I worked with then three Sanitary Districts (Aguié, Tessaoua and Mayahi) and organized training sessions to health patricians at health posts’.
At community level, the activities undergone were:
- Conception of communication strategy for the promotion of best health practices,
- Elaboration of training manuals and messages (audio, posters, pamphlets) on health, education and poverty reduction, gender and peace;
- Elaboration pedagogic materials for community workshops;
- Training of community volunteers and monitoring their activities especially Community based Distribution (CBD);
- Creation and coaching of folkloric groups for sensitization drama, awareness raising campaigns.

What sparked your passion for family planning?

During my first working experience, I discovered that most of malnurished children are ones of multipare women with reduced birth interval and mostly in very poor houselhold. At community-level, nutritional taboos are persisiting what have a very detrimental effects on children and women.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your family planning efforts, and what have you done to overcome it?

The biggest challenge in family planning is the misconception of family planning itself at all level partcularly the population and the practitioners. To overcome this challenge we defined a communication strategy with focus on adressing the health issues for the differents community members and for the health practitioners.

What is your (country/region/city)’s biggest challenge in family planning, and how can it be addressed?

The biggest challenge in Niger is the misunderstanding of family planning and the poor service provided on family planning. It can be addressed through improvement of communication, improvement of education at all level especially focusing on teenagers, improvement of service provided in health centers and reinforcement of community-based services.

What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years?

I want to set up a coalition,a partnership to address family planning issues. A strong partnership to improve the national policy on family planning, health,education and agriculture.